Better For Who
by Pessimistic Romanticist
Summary: post break up fic inspired slightly by the maroon 5 song " better that we break". Mindy and Danny have it out in a explosive argument in the pipe room.


**A/n: **This is the third one-shot. I Intended to make this a little more angsty then "Need", but I ended up mixing in some humor along with the romance and angst, sometimes the story writes itself,enjoy.

**Special thanks:** _To my awesome and lovely beta robinbrowneyes1975, for making sense out of my run on sentences and other grammatical faux pas'._

**-Pessi . Rom**

"Peter, Peter open this door right now!" Mindy yelled. She couldn't believe Peter had lured her and Danny to the hot pipe room, locking them in.

"If you don't open this door you're fired!" Danny yelled.

"We can't fire him, hes great with the patients." Mindy said turning to face Danny.

"Well obviously we're not gonna actually fire him. Just need him to open the damn door! " Danny said kicking the door.

"Whoa..." Mindy said, taking a step back.

"Sorry..."

"I'm giving you two some time to talk it out, then I'll come back and unlock the door." Peter said from outside the door.

"You can't do that, Peter, I have appointments!" Mindy said, moving back toward the door .

"Neither of you have an appointment for another two hours. Now talk! " Peter said.

They then heard his footsteps walking away. Mindy continued to yell till her throat was sore, Danny joined in. They gave up after a few minutes. It was obvious no one was coming ;they were stuck until Peter returned. Mindy slid to the floor with a huff. The week just kept getting worse and worse. It had been a week since Danny had broken up with her, and it had been so awkward. She didn't know how to act around him. She wished she could slip back into the way things were before he kissed her, then dumped her, but she couldn't.

Mindy couldn't stop thinking about how happy she had been, when they were together. Stupid Danny just had to go and break her heart. No, if she was honest, he shattered her heart. She couldn't avoid him on the subway, at the office, or at the hospital. The universe just seemed hell bent on her having run-ins with him. They were bumping into each other more often then they had when they were sneaking around. The week was finally coming to an end. She just had to get through one more work day, then she could drink away her heartbreak the entire weekend.

Unbeknownst to her, Peter had other plans for her and Danny. He saw the way Danny and Mindy tensed around each other; the way his co-workers avoided eye contact. They had even managed to communicate without directly talking to each other, thanks to like everyone else, except Peter, of course, in the office was still oblivious to what had transpired between Mindy and Danny. Jeremy and Beverly were starting to notice the mounting tension. Jeremy assumed it was Peters fault until Peter finally spilled the beans.

_Earlier_

"So you're saying it was Danny, not you , who Mindy was sneaking around with, huh." Jeremy said.

"Yeah and they ended it. Which is stupid cause clearly they're both miserable without each other." Peter said.

"Ok, but why is this our concern? Whatever happened with Danny and Mindy is a personal matter, and we shouldn't get involved." Jeremy said.

"Are you kidding me, bro? you got involved when you thought it was me and Mindy. I've gotta admit, you and Morgan were pretty insulting to me, but like a good bro, I let it go." Peter said.

"You're right, you're right. So what do you propose we do about it?" Jeremy asked.

"Hmm, well, they've been avoiding each other like one of them gave the other herpes." Peter said.

"You think Mindy gave Danny herpes?!" Jeremy said, appalled.

"No, I just meant you can't get them to stay in the same room as each other, with the exception of staff meetings. We need to get them somewhere alone where they can't avoid each other..."

"Where, and how would you do that?"

"Oh, I got it, the hot pipe room! It locks from the outside, we'd just have to get them in there, its perfect." Peter said, excited.

"What about their patients? " Jeremy asked. He did not want to get saddled with Mindy and Danny's patients.

" I heard Betsy say they both had a two hour gap in their appointments should be enough time for them to hash it out."

"If they don't kill each other first."

"I hadn't thought about that. Nah, I'm sure they'll be fine.

Peter then went about getting Mindy and Danny to go into the hot pipe room. He decided to start with Mindy, poking his head casually into her office.

" Hey, Mindy, I think someone found your secret stash of People magazines in the hot pipe room. I saw one of Jeremy's patients with one."

"No, no, please tell me it wasn't the one with the inside look at Kimye's wedding! I will kill whoever found my stash!" Mindy said, quickly running out of her office and to the hot pipe room.

Next up was Danny. His door was closed , so Peter knocked before poking his head in. Danny was sitting behind his desk, with weary look on his face. Somber music was lowly playing in the background.

"Hey, little buddy, you okay?" Peter said.

"What! Yeah, I'm fine, don't call me that. What do you want?" Danny said quickly turning off the music. Peter could of sworn he saw Danny quickly wipe his eyes.

"Dude, were you just crying?" Peter asked.

"No, no, of course I wasn't crying. Men don't cry, and I'm a man. You gonna tell me what you want, or what?" Danny said.

"Alright, chill, I just came to tell you there's a sitch in the HPR that I think you should really see." Peter said.

" What the hell does that mean? Will you please speak English, Peter?" Danny said, clearly frustrated.

"That was English." Peter said .

"Peter, just get to the point." Danny said curtly.

"Sorry, Bro, basically, someone hung one of the photos of you from wiener night in the hot pipe room. And let's just say it isn't one of the modest ones." Peter said.

"There's a what?!" Danny said jumping up out of his seat.

"It's one of the full frontal ones." Peter said.

"I got that, Peter! I'm gonna kill whoever hung it up. I bet it was Morgan!" Danny said, running out of his office and toward the hot pipe room.

Mindy looked up from her box of People magazines as she heard footsteps approach and enter the hot pipe room. Her back was still toward the door when she spoke.

"Peter, that magazine must of come from somewhere else because none of mine are missing."

"Mindy! What are you doing here? Was it you? Did you put the photo up!?" Danny asked, confused to see Mindy there. What was with his exes and naked photos? He didn't think Mindy could be that vindictive; maybe he didn't know her as well as he thought he did.

"Danny! What the hell are you talking about? What photo?" Mindy said, shocked and confused to see Danny standing there. Before either of them could say another word, Peter showed up and promptly closed the door, a grin on his face, key in hand.

"That wasn't weird at all." Mindy said sarcastically.

"Yeah. I'm gonna...the door's locked." Danny said, grabbing onto the door handle. He twisted it but it wouldn't budge.

"You're kidding me!" Mindy said, hoping he was joking, but this was Danny, his jokes were lame but they weren't that lame.

"No. Peter locked us in!" Danny said continuing to twist the door knob to no avail.

* * *

And that's how they found themselves locked together in the hot pipe room. Mindy continued to sit on the floor, while Danny stood next to the door, his ear pressed against it listening for anyone who might be walking past. Mindy sighed then stood up facing Danny.

"Peter will probably do this again, if we don't at least talk." Mindy said.

"There's nothing to talk about." Danny said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Oh, so, you haven't been avoiding me? You've sweated bucket fulls around me all week."

"Nope, I, I've been busy." Danny said, denying the tension.

"Come on, Danny. I'll admit it, I've been avoiding you. And your quick exits every time you enter a room and see me prove you've been avoiding me."

"Not avoiding, I was just , you know , giving you your space. That's what people do after a break up." Danny said.

"A break up I didn't want!" Mindy said, getting annoyed.

"It was better to end it now. It wouldn't have worked." Danny said, looking away. He couldn't look her in the eye. The truth was he had been avoiding her. He wasn't fine. He was in pain, pain over letting her go. It got harder and harder everyday seeing her, but he knew he did what was best. It was better that they break now while it was still fresh, before things got messy, before he fell even deeper, and she didn't.

"Better for who, Danny? For our friendship? You can't even look at me. How is this friendship? Better for you maybe, but not for me." Mindy said, turning away from him. She blinked back tears as she deeply inhaled then exhaled.

"I, I'm sorry..." Danny said reaching out to touch her, but she flinched at his touch.

"Don't, Danny, just don't , okay. I don't want to hear it. " Mindy said, still facing away from him.

Danny didn't know what else to say. Mindy had rebounded after a week with her other relationships that had lasted only a month. He thought it would be the same with him. Of course , things would be different. They worked together, but he didn't expect her to treat him like she treated her other exes in the building. Truth was, he was trying to give himself space. He had to in order to push away the thoughts that he was a fool that let her slip away. He knew he was a fool though, a scared fool in love. In love with a woman that he'd pushed away because she was also his best friend and he didn't want to screw that up. He'd screwed it up anyway, it had been less than a week and everything was already so different.

"Min?" Danny said. Mindy cringed as she heard the nickname that had once been music to her ears. Now it just sounded hollow.

"Leave me alone, Danny. Just go sit in the other corner. This will go a lot faster if we don't talk." Mindy said, sliding down to the floor again.

"Okay. If that's what you want." Danny said then started to walked toward the other side of the small room. Something in Mindy suddenly snapped.

"What I want! What I want ,Danny , is to not have been jerked around by every guy I've dated in the last ten years. I've dealt with liars, cheaters ,drug addicts, men with commitment issues, men with multiple life callings, men with trust issues! What I didn't expect was for one of my best friends to kiss me, date me in secret, then dump me and expect everything to be peachy afterwards." Mindy said standing up. Danny turned to face her.

"You agreed to keep it a secret!" Danny said, getting angry. He didn't like the insinuation that he was just as bad as the previous men she dated.

"In the beginning! And that's not the point. When I didn't want that, you ran away. You gave up, Danny! You gave up and you broke my heart." Mindy said.

"I didn't. I didn't run away! It was for the best, we would have made each other miserable , or killed each other." Danny argued.

"As opposed to what, being miserable now?!" Mindy said. She blinked back the returning tears. She would not let him see her cry.

"Dammit, Mindy, why can't we just go back to before?!" Danny said frustrated. He couldn't keep talking about it. He could see she was hurting, but couldn't she see he was hurting, too.

"Because you kissed me Danny. You started this, you ended this, and you wouldn't tell me why!" Mindy said, walking up to him and poking him in the chest with each 'you', and continued to poke him after the 'why'.

"Stop it, stop, Mindy, I..." Danny said, grabbing her finger mid poke, but Mindy interrupted him before he could say more.

"Don't even think about saying sorry again!" Mindy said before heading back toward her corner.

"Wait!" Danny said, making her face back toward him.

"What?!"

"You're right. I ran away. I couldn't handle it, so I ran away." Danny said.

"Handle what, dating me? You were embarrassed, weren't you?" Mindy said, falling back on her insecurities.

"No, not you. I couldn't handle my feelings. They were so strong they scared me. I kept thinking about how all the good moments of my life were always trumped by the bad ones. I didn't want you,us, to be one of those bad experiences. I meant it when I said I had to have you in my life. I didn't want to lose you."

"Why didn't you just tell me that?" Mindy said, moving closer to him.

"Because you don't tell a woman you've only been dating for a month that you're in love with her." Danny finally admitted.

"You, what?" Mindy said, shocked.

"I'm in love with you. I have been for awhile, and I didn't want to scare you away when it was obviously too soon for you to feel the same way. Or take the chance that you wouldn't feel the same way, and I would lose you from my life." Danny said.

"Danny, you idiot!" Mindy said, hitting him in the chest.

"Hey! What was that for?" Danny said, although it barely hurt. Mindy moved even closer to him, looking him in the eye with a smile on her face. She moved in even closer and kissed him gently.

"How could you think that, Danny, I wasn't being dramatic when I said you broke my heart. I felt it, too. I love you, Danny Castellano." Mindy said when she broke the kiss.

"You do?" Danny said. He couldn't believe what he'd just heard.

"Yeah." Mindy said with a grin. Danny smiled his crooked smile before leaning in and kissing her, pulling her closer to him.

"God, I missed your kisses." Mindy said curled into Danny's side on the floor. Who knew their first time would be in the hot pipe room.

"You did?"

"Yeah. Next time you get scared, promise me you wont run away, but that we'll talk about it honestly, no games."

"Promise, I'm not going anywhere." Danny said, kissing her head.

"Good." Mindy said with a smile.

* * *

**A/n:**_ Thanks for reading, this was my first time writing Peter and Jeremy with original dialogue I've One more post break up one-shot, which I probably wont be able to get posted till Tuesday, so look out for that. As always you can follow me on tumblr at mindiangrowl for tmp and pessimisticromanticist for my general fanfiction.  
_

**-Pessi . Rom**


End file.
